Dante and the Troubadour (1995)

In 1819, poet John Keats longed for a wine "tasting of Flora and the country green, dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth." Ever since, the sung poetry of medieval southern France has exemplified a cultural golden age. Working in the vanished Occitan or langue d'oc (language of the south) variant of Old French rather than in the Latin of educated courtiers, a professional class of traveling minstrel troubadours created a new poetry that combined incredible formal sophistication with a passionate language of ... Read More

In 1819, poet John Keats longed for a wine "tasting of Flora and the country green, dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth." Ever since, the sung poetry of medieval southern France has exemplified a cultural golden age. Working in the vanished Occitan or langue d'oc (language of the south) variant of Old French rather than in the Latin of educated courtiers, a professional class of traveling minstrel troubadours created a new poetry that combined incredible formal sophistication with a passionate language of interior emotion. This 1996 Sequentia disc presents seven pieces by troubadours of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, along with one instrumental composition. The selections are all quite long, around ten minutes; these are not short lyric effusions but large, ambitious literary constructions. Most of the vocal pieces are accompanied by a small ensemble of fiddles and harps, while a few are sung unaccompanied; Sequentia leaders Benjamin Bagby and Barbara Thornton... Read Less